We use cookies to enhance your experience on our website. By continuing to use our website, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.ContinueFind out more

Definition of brainstorm in English:

brainstorm

noun

1British informal A moment in which one is suddenly unable to think clearly or act sensibly.

‘we can only assume that someone simply had a brainstorm and left the important bits out’

‘Replacement's brainstorm at line-out put Wallabies back in ascendancy and concession of late penalty sealed fate of Lions.’

‘Annabel Goldie had a brainstorm - or maybe she's on something - and started flirting with Jack at Question Time.’

‘Well, I had a bit of a brainstorm which, er, resulted in me purchasing a LCD Projector!’

‘Are we expected to believe that Amazon had some kind of corporate brainstorm and just made up prices for XP?’

‘Stead off, ‘Andrew’ Cole on, Radostin Kishishev has an inexplicable brainstorm in front of goal, weakly knocks it to Kiely, and Cole gets in and scores.’

‘She was wondering about taking them back to the newsagent and telling him that the delivery girl had suffered a brainstorm when Astor turned to an inside page to show off the fruits of Tom Maddox's research.’

‘In the next game, Rigel appears to have a brainstorm at - 30, unnecessarily playing a cross-court drive-volley and putting it well wide.’

‘The Appeals Court should be deciding any time now whether or not to send the case back to the District Court with a new judge, and unless the judges have had some kind of collective brainstorm since the court last spoke, they'll send it back.’

‘Liverpool had equalised in the 54th minute when McEveley suffered a brainstorm and hit a free kick straight to Garcia, who immediately lobbed the ball through for Baros to score.’

‘I think National must have had a brainstorm, because it just beggars belief.’

‘Then came Bellamy's brainstorm in retaliation to a foul by Nikolai Ryndyuk on the half way line.’

‘In it he wrote about his brainstorms and his ‘horrible feeling of stress’ which made his body twitch.’

‘I keep hanging on to the fact that if he has had a bit of a brainstorm, we might get him back safe and well.’

‘Unless, of course, Scotland takes a collective brainstorm and opts for the Green Trot Nat coalition which united last week around the separatist standard.’

‘Whatever happened, I had a brainstorm, because I thought I had always understood the way it worked.’

‘My Mother, either under pressure from these 2 rascals or more likely in the middle of some sort of brainstorm, decided to give them a goat instead of giving me my present.’

‘And Jean Van de Velde's brainstorm at Carnoustie four years ago looms large in most memories.’

2A spontaneous group discussion to produce ideas and ways of solving problems.

‘the participants held a brainstorm’

as modifier‘brainstorm exercises’

‘Match the purpose to the knowledge and background people might need: otherwise you'll spend your brainstorm meeting lecturing people on the basics of sales strategy.’

‘Inside, the atmosphere is like a shared brainstorm.’

‘If not specified by the customer, this is usually done by a brainstorm session wherein the project management staff express their opinions.’

‘We recommend that the project hold a brainstorm session in the early phases to determine ‘What is to be risk-managed.’’

‘To work with staff, consider an informal brainstorm luncheon to seek new ideas for training sessions.’

‘What follows is a brainstorm to work out new ways of tackling the problem for the parent to try.’

‘Often we would go into brainstorms, giving new ideas to the designer of the game.’

‘People come together and you get more of a brainstorm than you do on your own.’

‘And later, how to stop a brainstorm with more and more American kids on behavior-changing drugs.’

‘A survey by Business Link revealed that few rated brainstorms or discussions at work with colleagues.’

‘The executive leadership symposium started out as a brainstorm for AORN and quickly became a success.’

‘I would so loved to have been in the brainstorm for this.’

‘‘I love the awkwardness of a brainstorm, the tenseness when different ideas come together,’ she says.’

‘Lament began as a personal and political brainstorm on feelings of loss sparked by the tumult of autumn 2001.’

‘‘The tween is much more sophisticated than people credit,’ Marcy George, US licensing director, says during a merchandising brainstorm session.’

‘I was in a brainstorm at my company a few months ago, a session of throwing ideas around.’

‘A quick brainstorm session with a group of fourteen women volunteers in July 2000 produced the following list of benefits of volunteering.’

‘Each Friday they have a brainstorm session, and realize they have a ton of features they'd love to commit to.’

‘Do the best ideas come at the beginning of a brainstorm or at the end?’

‘Mensa has adopted the Manchester bee as its symbol for the weekend brainstorm, which runs until Sunday and includes the group's annual general meeting.’

2.1North American informal A sudden clever idea.

‘these three brainstorms may flop like other well-intentioned innovations’

‘As with most of my brainstorms, I then started to wonder about the next step.’

‘He used to always show up at this annual campus event we'd have during Pride Week, and one year a theatre major had a big brainstorm.’

‘One night I had a brainstorm - why not use our propane burner for canning?’

‘Even if your bike ride or speed walk produces no brainstorms, regular exercise reduces stress, increases energy, and makes you feel better in general - all of which can only improve your effectiveness.’

‘And the answer is, yes, the research divisions generally cringe at the sight of such marketing brainstorms.’

‘Still…… then I had a brainstorm: what if, instead of my making the money, I made sure all of the profits went to a worthy not-for-profit organization?’

‘He ponders the situation for a moment, then has a brainstorm: he sticks the small red ice-scraper in the snow to mark the spot.’

‘I did very little production on this, I supervised and project managed the design team and dealt with several staff issues but actually had minimal design input past the brainstorm.’

‘The brainstorm happened at Mama's Royal Cafe, in Oakland, in the midst of a December 1998 breakfast with Anne French, a former Intuit marketing manager.’

‘Armed with a regiment of recipes, which had been perfected over months, Burke had a last minute brainstorm and completely changed his menu the day of the competition.’

‘In other words, as everyone now recognizes, this work followed the brainstorm of Koltsov's problem of the molecular nature of genes.’

‘Anyway, that's my brainstorm in the shower idea for today.’

‘A bureaucrat had a brainstorm, and the three-letter system was born, giving a seemingly endless 17, 576 different combinations.’

‘This brainstorm on the eve of October 30th at his home in London, Ontario would lead to Banting formulating a hypothesis.’

‘Anne went door-to-door, sharing her brainstorm.’

‘By the fall of 1963, he was coaching his brainstorm - Canada's first national hockey team.’

‘As Doctoroff watched in wonder at the nationalistic passion, a brainstorm struck.’

‘A couple of years ago, the NME had one of its periodic brainstorms in which it tries to create completely new musical genres or re-invent existing ones.’

‘After a few minutes of futile searching, I had a brainstorm.’

‘One day, while I was planning my lessons with technology on my mind, a brainstorm hit: Why not use the disks and CDs as material for a lesson in sculpture?’